Moment Musicaux

"Don’t be afraid of the presentation itself.

Be afraid, very afraid, of not having anything to present."

- John Ziegler, quoting his daughter.

Met the DDB Asia-pacific boss himself today at the final presentation pitch of the DDB Apprentice. It was very cool, really, to be able to have been allowed to play a small part in the whole Apprenticeship. Like I ‘anonymously’ mentioned in Min’s blog, I’ll surely miss them all.

Poor Min had epileptic fits into the wee hours of the morning (they all camped over at the office, not unlike what we do before presentations in school), and it’s really quite Murphy’s Law that it should happen. She’s OK now, but 12 hours of waiting in SGH for a ward is really far out.

A side update on the triathlon — the not-so-goodie bags are here, and my swim cap is… Bright pink. Today’s swim went quite badly. I felt the effects of the unbridled diet I’ve been having for the past 2 weeks. SUNDAY!! Argh.

It’s my lil’ sister’s birthday today! She turns 13. (:

It’s also my colleague’s birthday too — she is exactly one lunar ‘cycle’ older than my sis. What a coincidence. We celebrated Aisha’s birthday at Peperoni Pizzeria at Botanic Gardens. The food there was surprisingly good! It’s weird that my older colleagues actually do hang out at the Botanic Gardens. Hmm. Anyway, the cake was definitely the highlight of the day.

It’s SO good, I promise. Looks fantastic, tastes even better! I’m not kidding. Every little figurine is hand made, and eatable. Sugar paste. It’s by another colleague’s friend who runs her own cakery from home. This is the website:

www.hotfuchsia.com

And here’s the birthday girl (Aisha, not my sis)!

It has been a fantastic, albeit tiring week at work. The Cutural Week was to refresh our minds on what our company culture is all about. We were once again reinforced with the ‘four freedoms’ stemming from Bill Bernbach, the founder of the agency. I had to be down at the office at 8.45am every morning, and um, it was visibly a struggle for many of the people here. Haha.

Anyway, did you know that releasing balloons into the air requires release, pardon the pun, from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS)?

This is what happened the day before the MD realised that.

Out four freedoms are:

The Freedom from Fear
The Freedom to Fail
The Freedom from Chaos and
The Freedom to Be.

So that morning, everyone got to write what they’d like to release onto a note and tie it to a balloon. And we released the balloons together.

The next few pictures will be a less wordy representation of the week.

Visit to a Procolour, a colour separation/printing company.

Huge printers… Paper folders…

DDBar/BBQ… We were given a nice DDB T-shirt each to wear on Friday. Then an impromptu T-shirt customisation competition came on. Our most beloved, mother-of-all-the-events, happy, HR Manager had his in a bikini. I was in the midst of a brainstorm session when he paraded. So I shrieked. And so did half the agency. It was so traumatising that I didn’t even think of taking a picture of it. Here’s the runway.

My senior’s tee, butt hair and tattoo and all:
-shakes head in mock disapproval-

I don’t know why he won third prize. It was a fluke that he did. Guess copy does still carry clout in today’s world. Well, maybe.

So we had lamb chops, prawns, stingray, BIG OYSTERS! and sotong coated in potent sambal chili which gave me the runs.

Here’s Stella and Chooi Lee, our hot BBQ Mamas.

and more..

This is Steven, Ling and I from one of the DDBars 3 weeks ago.

And to round it off, ’twas DDB Family Day! The Ministry of Fun, our in-house recreational club (which I’m also -mumbles- part of), took a month to plan this. I shall put more pictures on when I get my hands on the ones taken by proper cameras. But here’s my senior’s eldest daughter and my ex-account director’s haaaaannsummm son!! My senior’s younger daughter is soooo cute. I love kids… And I wish they would remain 3 years old, forever. I wish.

I spent half the time in the playpen looking after the kids (amazingly plenty for an advertising agency) and being clumsy. Even the agency’s President had to chide me (in jest, of course) when I, seated opposite him, knocked over my orange juice and almost, a colleague’s laksa. Yikes.

I’m watching the Ecuador/Germany match. Thank SCV’s four free-to-air matches. Ecuador’s really a shadow of what they have been playing. Either the World Cup is getting slightly boring, or I’m expecting too much from it.

But goodness, betting surely takes the fun out of soccer for betters. Don’t you think?

All right, make that hardcore betters. And how much you value your dollar, put into something that can’t ascertain returns. Hey wait — then why put it in in the first place? Hmm. I can’t explain that myself. D’oh.

In hope of the team you bet on winning, though not necessarily the team you’d be supporting, you experience a myriad of emotions — exhilaration, disappointment, hope, frustration, and satisfaction. All in 90 +/- minutes.

A tip to men: perhaps that’s the closest feeling you can get to PMS in a woman.

Funny how TAF Club stands for ‘Trim And Fit’, yet the students who are in it don’t reflect the club’s name. And you won’t ever get them phrasing the club name as ‘Fit And Trim’, because that would mean a big hullabaloo.

Anyway.

Tennis today was fantastic after a two month drought, but my knees and wrist kind of feel the shock now. It’s trembling slightly as I type. Grr. But my weight has gone DOWN and my faux three-months belly is unofficially relegated to one-month status! Yahoooo! All the long-distance chiong sua swimming must’ve worked it down man. But my metabolism rate has gone up a notch, and I find myself already perspiring after just a three minute walk from my place to church!

But really, so much for all the exercise. I’ve been eating like a cow (no thanks to the metabolic rate and the re-opening of Tiong Bahru market) and let me add, rather unhealthily.

It’s only 2 weeks left to the triathlon. 1.5 Km in 50 minutes is pretty much comfortable for me; I’m still wondering the most important aspect of the race — how to start off. Rawr. HOW?

I always wonder why many people today have stifled imagination, myself included.

How literary appreciation has paved way for visual whoring. My senior blames this effect on technological advancement. Computer games nowadays have everything fed to youths visually, and they don’t have the habit of training their own minds to think in their own visual terms. As a youth, his form of entertainment came from RPGs. No, not the World of Warcraft kind. It’s done real time, with nothing else but a pen, dice, paper and vast imagination. Even now, it hasn’t changed.

AK47 then gave me a slight peek into Dungeons and Dragons, his style, and it was really quite a different story from what goes on on the Xbox. If I were to pull two youths to sit down and play this version, chances are they’ll get bored in no time.

No awesome CG, no mouse, no SFX… No game.

Imagination, where hath thou gone?

Oh yes, I’m stuck in good ol’ Singapore, doing my interns-are-not-entitled-to-take-leave internship and farting away (7 times in the last half-hour) while the rest of the youths are in M’sia for the church camp and the brother has absconded to Clementi McDs’ to catch England vs T&T.

By the way, did I mention that Ecuador beat Costa Rica 3-0? They (Costa Rica, not Ecuador) are the team which allowed the biggest number of goals so far, but I’m not complaining

Ecuador is going to do a Greece in Euro 2004, mark my words. You’ve been warned.

I hope Eriksson leaves Rooney on the bench to keep him for the Sweden game, though. Unless he wants to give his roots lesser a chance of getting uprooted, which means Rooney plays in the T&T match and gets his legs blown up (choy), then he rests against the Swedes.

Well, like I informed earlier, my GAStrics aren’t at their optimum and neither is my alertness, so I shall save the soccer for tomorrow’s screening at the auditorium again. Whoopee.

The latest StarHub campaign! Check it out by clicking on the link below (:

Today a few of us went for a recording session at Song Zu! It was really quite fun (apart from the aircon-less recording booth) and we did a pretty solid DDB rendition of Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Do You Wanna’. Can’t wait for its mastering — it’ll be played for the company on Friday. Actually, working in sound production seems really fun. Of course it can be a little annoying (ProTools), but imagine composing music for television commercials and stuff as a living. So cool!

Next week marks the start of the DDB Unleash! Cultural Week, and it’s really quite hard to reach the office by 8.45am because of all the soccer matches going on. Friday night will be another BBQ + Bar + Soccer screening, and Saturday will wrap up the whole event with the DDB Family Day.

So cool, huh? I already have 97% of a mind to go back. And do copywriting for the next three quarts of my life. 

Last weekend was a nice, hectic weekend. The company was showing the Friday opening match on the Huge Screen and had clients over and a great catered dinner + bar, but I felt that my mama wouldn’t be too happy if I were to stay out late all the time for soccer. So I gave up the Germany/Costa Rica match for the England (yawn) Paraguay match. It was really boring. The only entertainment I had came from the youths who were watching with me at Mel’s and the match commentator. Nice, dry humour.

Oh yeah, and Peter Crouch, too. I can’t stand his face, his height, his ball control, his awkwardness, His Clumsiness… Hahahaha. But seriously, this year’s World Cup has a bad problem. Hyped players, yet no gel. Injuries, fat players, fat coaches… Sigh. Like what my colleague says, maybe I should just wait for the teams to settle down before sparing any sleep for the matches.

Saturday was more soccer, with the youths taking part in a muddy inter-church soccer/captain’s ball tournament. It’s supposed to be Under 18, but some blatant army singletees and bulky older-looking guys meant that our youths were probably the youngest bunch there. Had I known, I’d have played instead of refreeing! But still, the boys were terrific. With an average age of 15 1/2, they managed to beat those who were older than them with a clean sheet (6-0, 6-0) till the semis! My toenails still have memories of running around barefoot in the field.

Here’s a belated Happy 16th to Priscilla! (:

Was at Plaza Singapura’s Yamaha getting her a drum practice pad, when I realised that they stocked pro-mark sticks. Better still, Carter Beauford’s signature series!! They felt damn good to the grip, and I honestly had a Harry Potter moment there. I had to buy them.
 

The sticks are 5AB, but only slightly heavier than the 7A that I’ve always been using. But I’ve been searching for a heavier pair because light ones are getting a tad hard for heavier playing and control. And voila, my drumming idol’s sticks! Jamming with the new sticks felt good! Need to watch my tempo though. Lots to improve still. The band’s name is changed to ‘You and Whose Army?’, after a Radiohead song.

Okay I’ll end here. Shall blog more another day, I’m too sleepy right now.

This thingamagi is harder to handle than I expected. Grr. Persevere! Chris, halp!

No more Blorger for me. Used that for 3 whole years… But life goes on.
Heck, I’m not even 19 — yet.

Why the switch?

I guess I want more organisation and a less kiddish looking blog. Yeah.

Plus the thousand-and-one links to add on, I don’t know if I’ll put them all up after all. May just a few that is worth the mention. Not that the rest aren’t, just… Lazy lah.